When there was a knock at the door, she could tell by no more than the sharp rap that it was Brady. “Go away,” she said loudly, so of course he opened the door and came inside.
At least he’d bothered to knock first. Since Sandra’s bedroom was the only one with a lock, she always just walked right into Lexy’s room, so once Lexy had used part of her allowance to buy a lock for the door. It was just a chain, like on motel doors, but took her hours to put it up. The first time Sandra had tried to come in and couldn’t, she’d gone ballistic. She’d made Lexy take it off, and then made her pay to have some guy come in and fix the holes in the door and the jamb.
But it had been worth it, she thought with a secretive smile as she remembered the way Sandra’s face had turned all splotchy red and she’d sputtered like some cartoon character because she couldn’t put into words how pissed she was.
Brady went to the window and sat down on the sill facing her. “What’s up?”
“Nothing.”
“So that’s your everything’s-fine-with-the-world face?”
She scowled at him. “I was watching that movie, and she just turned it off.”
“She asked you to get ready to go. You should have done it.”
“No, she didn’t. She told me. ‘Throw on some clothes, we’re going,’” she said in a squeaky, whiny voice that sounded a lot more like Sandra than Hallie. “I don’t wanna go.”
He rubbed his jaw for a moment, like he was trying to think of a way to take Hallie’s side without making it look like he was taking her side. “I know all these restrictions aren’t a lot of fun, but it’s not Hallie’s fault. She’s really gone out of her way to help us out—doing things with you, spending time with us, taking me to the hospital in the middle of the night, letting us move in here. She didn’t plan on any of this when she came here, but she hasn’t complained at all.”
“She’s only doing it ’cause she likes sleeping with you.”
If she were in a better mood, Lexy would think it was funny that he was embarrassed. Like she wasn’t supposed to know what they were doing in the next room at night? Heck— She scowled harder. Hell, she’d known about sex and everything since she was, like, ten years old.
“That’s not true, Lex. She’s done it because she likes you—us—a lot.”
“Then why is she still planning to go back to California?”
“Is that what this is about?”
She rolled onto her side, stuck her arm under her head so her earrings wouldn’t pinch and stared at the poster on the wall. Hallie had seen her looking at it when they’d gone shopping after the fire, and had bought it for her. It was a bigger-than-life picture of Devin Daley, the guy who starred in one of her favorite TV shows. He was in high school on the show, but Hallie, who’d met him, told her he was really twenty-three.
Lexy didn’t know why anyone would want to pretend to be a kid after they weren’t anymore. She just wanted to make it to twenty, ’cause being a teenager wasn’t turning out to be a hell of a lot of fun.
“Lex?” Brady sat down on the bed beside her. “Are you worried that Hallie’s going to leave before you do?”
Hallie had started talking about going home more often. When I get back to L.A., I’ll get you an autographed picture of Devin, she’d said when she’d paid for the poster. I need to get a hair appointment when I get back home. I’ll get Max to give me the director’s cut of that movie for you after I go home.
Lexy didn’t want her to leave at all—and she didn’t want to leave, either. Living here, just the three of them, was so totally different from living with Sandra and Adam. Brady and Hallie were so much cooler, and they liked each other a lot, and they even seemed to like her.
But not enough to even think about asking her to stay. She knew Sandra wouldn’t let her—then she’d lose all that child support money Brady paid—and besides, she never agreed to anything Lexy wanted.
But it would be awfully nice if they at least wanted her to stay.
“You’ll see her again,” Brady said.
“Yeah.”
“Hey, neither of you are gone yet. Let’s not dread the future so much that we can’t enjoy the present, okay?”
“So I should just ignore the fact that we’ll both be leaving here soon? Is that what you’re doing? Pretending that it’s not gonna happen? That you won’t miss us? That you won’t especially miss her?”
For a minute he looked so anxious that she wished she hadn’t said anything. To make up for it, she sat up and hugged him tightly. “I’m sorry. Give me five minutes—” which really meant fifteen “—and I’ll be ready to go.”
“Okay.”
And just before he stood up…he hugged her back.
The way a father should.
Chapter 12
Thanks to Lexy’s piddling around, by the time they reached Heartbreak, it was lunchtime, which required a stop at Shay Rafferty’s café. Before they even placed their order, Shay had offered Lexy a part-time job. Very part-time—three, four hours max. Brady felt funny about leaving her there, but the lawman in him pointed out there wasn’t much safer than being in a crowd where a stranger would stand out like a neon sign.
So now Lexy was learning the ins and outs of waitressing, and he and Hallie were on their way to the Barnett place. The property was just outside Heartbreak’s town limits, and it was a pretty piece—all pasture and timber, with a thicket of scrub oaks between the road and the house offering privacy. He’d expected someone from the crew to be there working, but the only living souls around were Reese’s horses in the pasture out back.
After parking in the driveway, he and Hallie climbed out. She headed immediately for the new house, digging in her bag for keys as she went, but he remained by the truck, looking at the place where the other house had stood. It wouldn’t be fair to call it old, since Reese had been living there only a few months when it got shot all to hell.
Brady had known from his patrols where the place was, but he’d never actually been there until the day in June when Reese called and asked for his help in protecting Neely. He’d moved in for a couple of days, and when the trouble was over, they’d all moved out. Neither Neely nor Reese had wanted to sleep in a house where so many people had died violently, and he didn’t blame them.
He became aware of Hallie’s approach a moment before he heard her shoes crunching on gravel. She stopped beside him, keys in hand, and quietly asked, “Is this the first time you’ve been here since…?”
“Yeah.” He kept looking, though there was nothing to see. Every bit of glass, wood, concrete and stone was gone, and with the recent rain, grass was already sprouting in the dirt.
But he could still see every detail. In the short time he’d stayed there, he’d been able to make his way around the entire house in the dark, and he’d known the lay of the land as well as Reese. He’d wanted to come out of the confrontation with Neely’s enemies alive, and he’d succeeded…barely.
“Neely was locked in the safe room that night,” he said softly, referring to the specially constructed room that could stand up to the severest of tornadoes—and gunfire, too, they’d proven. “Reese and I had killed five or six men when they disarmed us both. Reese had been shot just a couple days before, and when they figured out where she was, they tried to force him to give them the key to the room by putting pressure on his wound. He was in agony, but there wasn’t a key to give them.”
It was another hundred-degree-plus day without a cloud in the sky overhead. Off to the northwest, though, the horizon was lined with dark gray. Rain would be good—they were still inches behind on the usual rain—but a thunderstorm would be even better, especially if folks had the sense to stay out of it.
Sweat trickled down his forehead, and he felt it, tickling and annoying, inside his cast. He really didn’t need to be standing out here in this heat talking about something that was over and done with and should be forgotten until the trial for the two surviving men rolled around. But he didn�
�t move, and neither did Hallie.
“They took us, both handcuffed, into the bedroom,” he finally went on. “They tried to shoot their way in and couldn’t, so Forbes, the bastard who was behind it all, ordered Reese to tell Neely to open the door. He wasn’t going to—he figured he could keep his mouth shut until he passed out from the pain. But instead of trying that again, they put me on my knees, put a .45 to the back of my head and said they would kill me on the count of five.” He smiled wryly. “They made it to four before Reese gave in.”
He let the rectangular plot of dirt go blurry and put himself back in time in that memory. “I was so pissed with him. Of course, I didn’t know Neely had a gun, and I didn’t know she was capable of smiling at a man standing this close—” he indicated the distance between him and Hallie “—and blowing him away.”
With a shudder, she slid her arms around his waist. “They would have killed you.”
“I know. But I wasn’t afraid. Maybe all those times I thought my parents were going to kill me paid off.”
“You’re a brave man.”
He shook his head. “I just did what I had to do.”
Keeping one arm around him, she turned him in the direction of the new house. “You believe what you want, and I’ll believe the truth.”
He liked that she believed in him in spite of himself. He didn’t think anyone else ever had, other than Neely and Reese.
“What about your house?” she asked. “Are you going to rebuild, or go back to living in an apartment?”
“I have forty acres. Right now it’s leased to a neighbor, but I’ll probably see if I can buy out the lease, and build a place. Not anything like you’re used to,” he said with a sidelong look, “but with a bedroom and bath for Lexy. She can spend more time in the bathroom… She came in one day while I was in the shower. I asked her if privacy was a foreign concept to her, and in a real snooty Sandra-type voice, she said no, but living with only one bathroom was.”
Hallie laughed. “Regardless of where I live, I’m not a snob, but I agree with her on that. I grew up in a house with five females and only one bathroom. On my list of vital necessities for a house, a second bathroom comes before a kitchen, living or dining room.” She climbed the steps to the porch and unlocked the front door before glancing back at him. “So you’re going to stay a part of her life.”
“If she wants me to.”
“You know she does.”
“I know she does right now. I don’t know about next month or next year. As she gets older, she may lose interest, or her mother may change her mind.”
“I won’t embarrass you by getting all mushy, but I think what you’re doing is admirable and Lexy’s very lucky to have you for a father, whether you are or not.”
No, he was the lucky one, in more ways than he could count.
The door opened into a small foyer. The temperature was a few degrees cooler inside, and the smell of fresh-cut wood sweetened the air. On the right a doorway led into a hall, there was a closet straight ahead, and on the left, wide double doors led into the room that filled the center half of the house. Large bay windows looked out on the lawn and the woods out front, and in back plenty of arched windows bordered the kitchen cabinets and framed a view of the barn and pasture. On the east end was the master bedroom and bath, the laundry room and the entrance to the garage, and on the west end, two bedrooms and two more baths. Apparently, Neely shared her sister’s idea of vital necessities.
The floor plan was similar to the other house, though the new place would be half again as big. And in the old house, the living room and kitchen had been separate rooms, while here it was one massive space. One nice space. It would be great when Hallie and Neely finished with it.
He wondered if he could persuade Hallie to stick around through the building of his house.
“So are they doing everything they’re supposed to be doing?” he asked after following her through the house and ending up in the master bath.
“Yeah, everything looks fine. Isn’t this tile beautiful?”
The floor was a mosaic of pale earthy colors—rose, dusky blue, mossy green, tan and lavender and russet—in an intricate star pattern, with smaller versions of it on the tub surround. “It’s nice,” he murmured.
“It’ll be repeated in the kitchen tile and in the wood floor in the foyer—an idea I may have to rip off when I get my own house.”
He leaned against the doorjamb while she checked out the fixtures. “Where are you going to find this house?” He’d been aiming for a casual-conversation tone, and he thought he’d achieved it, not that it mattered.
“I don’t know,” she said without glancing at him. “Someplace far from Los Angeles.”
How about Oklahoma? he wanted to suggest. It was halfway across the country from L.A., close to two of her sisters, reasonably close to the third one and their mother. And to him.
But he didn’t know how close she wanted to be to him.
“Come on,” he said. “Tell me what your ideal town is like.”
She leaned against the peach-colored counter, resting her hands on the curved edge. In her short, snug, pale green dress, she fitted right in with all the soft colors around her. “My ideal town…. It would be small, but big enough to offer most of the things I need. The people would be friendly, and it would be safe. Kids would ride their bikes and play, and everyone would know their neighbors. The schools would be good, and most people would like their jobs, and there would be this real sense of community.”
“I know the place you’re talking about. It only exists on a Hollywood backlot.”
“Oh, I don’t know. What about you? What’s your ideal town?”
“I’m satisfied with Buffalo Plains.” And that was true. Not happy, but satisfied. He would need Hallie and Lexy in his life on a permanent basis to be happy there or anywhere. After a moment, he moved a few steps closer. “What about your ideal house?”
“Something very homey. Do you know I got lost in the Beverly Hills house for the first month we lived there?” She tilted her head to one side while she thought, and the bruise on her forehead became visible. Between her makeup and her hair, it was hardly noticeable, but he couldn’t forget it. He hated that it was there.
“No frills,” she went on. “No impressive architectural details, no showplace. White or pale yellow outside, a big, wide porch with wicker chairs. Large rooms, lots of windows, lots of wood and stone. At least three bathrooms and three or four bedrooms, for all the nieces and nephews I plan to have visit me once Neely and Reese start producing them.”
“Why not fill them with your own kids?”
Her laughter couldn’t hide the sadness in her hazel eyes. “I’m thirty years old and a three-time lose—” At his scowl, she substituted, “And three times divorced. I swore to myself there would never be a fourth divorce, and the only way to guarantee that is never to have a fourth marriage.”
“Or to make sure you marry the right man.” He wondered if there was any chance in hell he could be that man.
“I thought I did that—three times. Obviously, my judgment isn’t the best. So, as the old saying goes, three strikes and you’re out.”
“How about fourth time’s the charm?”
“It’s third time—and believe me, Max wasn’t that much more charming than numbers one and two.” She pushed away from the counter and slipped past him. “Are you about ready to get back into some air-conditioning?”
No, he wanted to say. He wanted to talk. Wanted to find some argument that would change her mind. Wanted…just wanted.
But as he became aware of an itch down inside his cast and the fact that his shirt was sticking to his skin, he started after her.
The northwesterly clouds had advanced while they were inside, but in the local area, it was still blazing hot and dry. They had a wind now, though he was hard put to say whether it made things better or worse. At least it dried the sweat, but it also seemed to suck the air right out of his lungs.
“You know, the Southern California desert winds have nothing on this breeze,” Hallie remarked as she locked the door, then paused at the top of the steps. “I didn’t realize Oklahoma was part desert.”
“Nah, it’s not that bad.”
She raised one brow. “All you need is a tumbleweed rolling across here to complete the illusion.”
“Would you settle for a dust devil?” He pointed to where a mini-tornado was whirling across the pasture just inches above the ground.
She watched until it disappeared in a shower of dust drifting down. A faint smile curved her lips, and a certain look had come over her face. Contentment, Brady thought. He’d seen her wearing that look more often lately. But how could she be so contented and yet not even consider staying?
Finally she looked back from the field and smiled at him. “We’ve got probably another couple hours before Lexy’s ready. What do you want to do?”
“Let’s go for a drive. I’ll show you my land.”
After making certain she’d locked the door—she had a tendency to get distracted easily these days, she thought with a smile—she followed him down the steps and to the truck. As soon as he started the engine, she turned the air conditioner to high, then redirected the passenger vents directly toward her. As the frigid air washed over her heated skin, she closed her eyes and gave a sigh of relief. “Oh, that feels good.”
“God gave us summer so we wouldn’t complain too much about winter,” he remarked as he backed around.
“Where I live, winter means you put on a jacket or sweater.”
“Well, darlin’, then you’ve been living in the wrong place.”
“I know. And I intend to do something about it.”
At the end of the driveway, instead of turning left toward Heartbreak, he turned right. After less than half a mile, the paved road ended, giving way to dirt and gravel. Even after Thursday’s rain, the SUV’s wide tires sent up great plumes of dust behind them.
“I guess when you live out here, you give up on the notion of having a clean car, don’t you?” she asked.
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